Amazing Spider-Man 2 Producers Say They're Fans of Venom

Last month, it was revealed that director Marc Webb had conceived of his Amazing Spider-Man franchise as a trilogy, and that the fourth film, set to arrive in theaters on May 4, 2018, may in fact be the first (of possibly several) spinoff movie set in the Spider-Man universe. "It might not just be a Spider-Man movie," Webb said in an interview with Crave online. "You know, what was fun about the comics is that there's an entire sort of encyclopedia of characters, and stories, and histories, and nuances, and idiosyncrasies, and off-shoots."

As soon as the news of the planned/possible spinoff broke, fans immediately began speculating on which character, or characters, the film might focus on. One name that has consistently come up is, of course, Venom. This is a character that many fans have been hoping to see brought to life in a different way than was done in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 for years.

We sat down with writing/producing partners Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci recently to talk about their upcoming contemporary-set fantasy series Sleepy Hollow (stay tuned for more on that). Orci and Kurtzman are, among other things, a part of the team that wrote and produced The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

During the course of our conversation, we touched on Venom, and the possibility that the character may be the first to get his own spinoff film with The Amazing Spider-Man 4. (which will likely have a new title by the time of its release. The Amazing Spider-Man: Venom?) We asked the team if they'd seen Knights of Badassdom director Joe Lynch's 17-minute Venom fan-film starring True Blood's Ryan Kwanten. They hadn't.

"We're fans of Venom," Orci did say, however, when we asked if that is a character that they'd like to tackle.

"Venom is an amazing character. Venom is a brilliant character," Kurtzman continued, enthusiastically. "Part of what's interesting about Venom is that Venom can do all of the things that Spider-Man can't do, in a lot of ways. And I don't know, I guess that's why I respond to him."

They played a little coy when asked if they'd started to have specific conversations with Sony. "Well, we keep writing fan letters saying help us out, but we haven't had any responses yet," Orci joked. "I think they're going right to storage. I don't know if there's anyone there reading our letters."

Though they did skirt the specifics, it seemed clear that the pair would indeed like to take on one of the versions of Venom, whether in a solo film, or as a part of a Spider-Man-focused movie. The trick, of course, is capturing the essence of the character without making him so dark that they lose their PG-13 rating and, as such, much of the audience. It is possible that they could take him in the lethal protector/anti-hero direction; which may make the film and the character more palatable. Again, capturing the right tone would be the trick.

Rumors about a possible Venom solo film have been circling for years, Chronicle director Josh Trank was said to be in negotiations with Sony to direct a Venom movie before Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man was even released. He's currently underway on The Fantastic Four reboot for Fox, but that isn't to say that he couldn't come back around to Venom once that's complete.

It will be interesting to see which direction Sony does end up taking the franchise. It's clear that they are now working to emulate the Marvel/Disney model in the same way that Fox has done with the X-Men franchise and the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot. In other words, make the most of the characters you do have the rights to.

Is is possible that we could see a big superVILLAIN team-up in the form of the Sinister Six? That might be an interesting and unique direction, but it would be challenging. Because the question, as mentioned, is: Can we as an audience tap into a story that focuses on the baddies the way we can with one that focuses on the heroes?

Would it be better to do a film that centers on one character? If so, should that first spinoff character be Venom?

Leave your thoughts below.

Roth Cornet is an Entertainment Editor for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @RothCornet and IGN at Roth-IGN.